Candidates Talk Streets and Parks at Mayoral Forum

Eight mayoral candidates turned out for last night’s forum on streets and parks sponsored by Walk San Francisco, the Neighborhood Parks Council and Friends of the Urban Forest. The Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club’s endorsement meeting was also going on, and some of the candidates, who were juggling schedules, either showed up early and had to leave (Dennis Herrera), late (John Avalos, David Chiu) or not at all (Ed Lee, Bevan Dufty).

The candidates fielded a number of questions on pedestrian safety, walkability issues, parks, open space and urban forestry. It was moderated by San Francisco Chronicle urban design reporter John King.

You can listen to the audio below, or download the MP3 here. Special thanks to Aaron Bialick for the photo and audio. Did you attend? Who stood out the most to you?

(Note, there’s a slight technical glitch at 1:15, but it picks up about 30 seconds later).

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Bryan Goebel is a reporter at KQED Public Radio in San Francisco. A veteran journalist and writer, he helped launch Streetsblog SF in 2009 and served as editor for three years. He lives car-free in the Castro District.

I went to the event and was extremely disappointed with the answers of the candidates. It was basically one big pander-to-the-audience fest. And their answers shockingly similar to each other. The problem is that for some their answer did not match their past record. For example, Tony Hall stated that parking on the sidewalk is simply wrong and that he has tried to reduce it. But when sidewalk parking issues were brought up while he was on the Board of Supervisors he adamantly was against doing anything about it (though not to be outdone by Alioto-Pier who actually tried to legalize it). So everyone would basically say the same thing but the audience couldn’t tell who was being sincere and who was not.

And even worse were the answers on whether the candidates supported “registering bicyclists” due to them not obeying the law. Of course registration would have absolutely no effect on safety. And it is a totally unworkable idea. Instead the candidates should have stated that enforcement is the key issue. The police should be enforcing the law for all forms of transportation to reduce pedestrian injuries. But even the Green Party candidate came out in favor of “registering bicyclists”.

Those dudes

politics is as politics does. i wouldn’t believe a word any of them said.